Palak Paneer – Instant Pot

Palak paneer is a classic vegetarian dish from north India, made with fresh spinach and cheese, seasoned with fresh ginger, garlic and garam masala.

Palak paneer makes a healthy weeknight meal and is ready in 15 mins with this easy Instant Pot recipe! No boiling hot water or using your food processor to puree the spinach. Cook it all in one pot and let the immersion blender do its magic. Serve with steamed rice or hot parathas for a wholesome vegetarian meal!

What is Paneer?

Fresh, unsalted cheese that is similar to cottage cheese. Paneer is made by curdling milk using lemon juice or vinegar and then separating the why. All the excess water from the curdled milk solids are pressed out and then shaped to form soft cheese. Paneer is not aged and can be consumed right away. It adds a nice texture to curries, parathas, rice dishes and desserts. Check out my homemade paneer recipe.

How to Store Paneer?

Homemade Paneer can be refrigerated up to a week and can be frozen for extended shelf life. If buying paneer from a store, I usually cut it into cubes and freeze any unused portions right away.

Where can I buy Paneer?

I would recommend Gopi Brand Paneer from whole foods or Indian grocery stores. When buying paneer make sure it does not have any additives. Remember Milk and an acidic ingredient such as lemon juice or vinegar are the only 2 ingredients needed to make paneer.

So, I have been making this stove top recipe for years now. It is my mom’s healthy recipe, without any cream, cooked with homemade ghee and paneer! I have changed the original stovetop recipe a bit here to make it more creamy using cashews soaked in warm milk. Make sure to puree the cashews to a smooth creamy paste for a creamy luscious curry. Heavy Cream or unsweetened coconut cream can also be added in the end to make the dish more creamy and mild.

Step by step Palak Paneer Recipe:

Blend cashews with milk or water to make a very smooth puree and reserve. Heat oil in the Instant Pot and add cumin seeds, ginger, garlic, green chilies and saute for a minute. Add onions and cook for 2 minutes or they start to become translucent. Add fresh or frozen spinach, water and salt and pressure cook for zero minutes (fresh spinach) or 1 minute (frozen spinach)

Press the keep warm button and quick release the pressure right away to avoid overcooking of the spinach. Add 1/2 cup of water and carefully blend the spinach using an immersion blender. You may want to tilt the pot a little to avoid splattering.

Set the Instant Pot to Saute mode. Add cashew cream/paste, garam masala and paneer. Mix and cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until the sauce comes to a gentle boil. Take out the inner pot on a hot plate to avoid overcooking. Enjoy with parathas, naan or steamed rice!

PRO tips to keep the palak paneer looking green and fresh:

Quick release as soon as the pressure cooking cycle completes.

Turn off the keep warm button as you do the quick release.

Make sure that the Instant Pot is turned off as you are puree with the immersion blender. Take the inside pot out on a hot plate while pureeing. As you may need to tilt the pot to avoid splattering.

Return the inner pot back to the Instant Pot housing, add cashew paste, garam masala and paneer. Cook on sauté for 1 to 2 minutes only or until the gravy comes to a gentle boil.

Turn off the Instant Pot and take the inner pot out and keep it on a hot plate to avoid overcooking the spinach.

Here is a quick video for this EASY Palak Paneer Instant Pot recipe:

If you enjoyed this Palak Paneer recipe, check out these EASY and delicious vegetarian Instant Pot curries:

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Hey there! I am a techie turned recipe developer, cooking instructor, and food blogger. I love food and enjoy developing easy and healthy recipes for busy lifestyles. I live New Jersey with my husband and two sons.

EZ to make, healthy and flavorful! Made for a sumptuous Sunday lunch. (Couldn’t resist the snooze after that)!! Becoming a fan of my newly acquired instapot. EZ clean up too. Used bag of frozen chopped spinach. I didn’t have paneer so I substituted with fresh mozzarella balls.

Made this tonight for dinner in the IP. It was truly delicious! This might just break me of my palak paneer takeout addiction. I think I’m going to try freezing portions of it for quick dinners. Has any one tried that? I wonder if I should freeze without the paneer, or if it matters.

Hi Sarah, So glad you made this and enjoyed it. So much healthier than a takeout and so simple right? I have not frozen palak paneer but I have frozen just paneer and it works well. So I think freezing palak paneer will also work. I have seen many grocery stores selling this dish as frozen. Also did you try cooking this dish using frozen chopped spinach? It really makes this dish quicker and still delicious!

Hello Ministry of Curry – Great domain name. 🙂 I made this last night, and wanted to draw your attention to a little fix you might make: The ingredients list says ‘cumin’ and only in the directions do you say ‘cumin seeds’. I had already measured out the cumin powder and didn’t catch the mistake until after – boy did this have a LOT of cumin flavor!! We all agreed it was worth making again, ‘correctly’, because it was really good even with LOTS of cumin. Thank you for the recipe, and the one for the paneer, which turned out great with our goats’ milk. 🙂 I’ll be checking out your other stuff as well. – Wendy

Hi Wendy! Thank you for your kind words and also for pointing out the difference in my recipe. I will correct the recipe so it is clear. Thank you for trying the recipe and I am so glad you enjoyed this easy palak paneer recipe. I hope you enjoy rest of my recipes too.

Hi Archana! We are really looking forward to trying some of your other recipes. We are REALLY excited about the parathas – next rainy day! 🙂 Thank you for your hard work and dedication in doing this blog, and uploading the lovely pictures and sharing your expertise with the rest of us! 🙂

I don’t have an immersion blender, so after pressure cooking, I had to transfer the cooked spinach to my regular blender and then transfer it back to the IP to sauté again. Do you use your immersion blender a lot?

I will add 1/2 cup water while blending next time, as my final dish was a little drier than I expected.

Hi Dhanya, I love my immersion blender, I use it for soups, curry sauces, mango lassi. Most of the gravies do thicken up after they cool down. I am glad you loved the flavors. This recipe on repeat in my home.

Hi Audree, Instaed of pressure cooking the spinach for 1 minute you would cook it on stovetop until it comes to a full boil. Then follow remaining recipe. Add extra 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water as on stovetop water will evaporate. Do not use lid while cooking this dish so it maintains the fresh green color.

You can definitely add them. I love the freshness and flavors of spinach in this dish and do not like to overpower with too many spices. I like the heat in this dish from green chilies and hence no cayenne. I do not add turmeric to green curries as they can change the color of the curry but you can totally add. Also you can add coriander powder if you like.

Thanks for the recipe! I didn’t know palak paneer was so easy to make at home. I love that the ingredients used are all healthy and this recipe isn’t loaded with cream or butter. Will definitely be making this again and again.

I’ve been following your recipes since I’ve started using IP. They very easy to follow and end product comes out very yummy, so thanks alot for that. We are going on a 17 day road trip next week. Though I’ll be taking my IP with us but I was thinking if I can cook a few things and freeze them and then take them in the cooler with us, will that be okay? For example, I was thinking of making some paneer dishes, choley, rajma, dal and freeze them. We will have access to fridge to our accommodations (Hotels and AirBnBs) so we can pop them in the fridge when we check-in and can put them in the cooler with ice when driving. Do you think it’s a good idea. I just want to save some cooking when vacation mode is ON. We’ll take some naans and rotis too in the cooler bag and will cook rice in IP when needed. Your advice in this regard will be highly appreciated.

Hi Ranjana! Your road trip sounds really exciting! You can totally take cooked frozen dishes as long as they are in a cooler with ice. You can keep changing the ice as it melts. I think it is a great idea and will totally work for the dishes you mentioned. Have fun! And I can’t wait to hear how it goes.

The video was not being printed but the space taken up by the video was accounted for in my print preview, a large blank space spanning two pages thus making my printout 3 pages long with that blank space. I did copy & paste it into a Word document, deleted the Recipe Video spacing, and got a two page recipe.

Hi, I’m going to try your recipe tomorrow. Silly question- I have had fresh spinach that I have put into ziplock bags and put in my freezer. Would I weigh out 1lb of frozen spinach? Wouldn’t that be different then the fresh (ie 1 pound of fresh would be a lot more then 1pound of frozen)? Hopefully my question makes sense. Thank you!

Hi I want to make this recipe but don’t want to add green chilies is it ok to use cayenne pepper? Also do I need fresh ginger or is ground ginger ok? If yes how much of each of the ingredients do I add? Thank you!

You can add cayenne pepper to taste in the end after pressure cooking. I would recommend fresh ginger in this recipe. Dry ginger will alter the taste of the recipe. You can skip ginger if you do not have fresh ginger on hand. It will still be flavorful. Let me know if you have any other questions.

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Hi, I'm Archana! I'm a techie by trade but chef by heart. Welcome to my world of home cooking, crafts and most importantly, family experiences. Here you'll get doses of my family's daily meals. My step by step recipes will help you easily transport the flavors of India, Thailand, China and all over the world from my kitchen to yours.